Extremism and Terrorism
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Iraq: Extremism and Terrorism During a late July 2021 trip to Washington, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi requested the United States set a timetable for withdrawing from Iraq. On July 26, U.S. President Joe Biden pledged to end U.S. combat operations in Iraq by the end of the year. He said the United States would remain in a non-combat role to help Iraqi forces train and deal with ISIS. The Resistance Coordination Commission—which represents various Iran-backed Iraqi militant groups—dismissed the declaration as “fraud” and “manipulation” designed to “prolong the [U.S.] hegemony.” The committee includes Kata’ib Hezbollah, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, and Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba militias. The militants pledged to continue fighting to “purify our holy land from the abomination of the occupiers” until all U.S. troops exit Iraq. (Sources: New York Times, CNN, Foreign Policy) The Resistance Coordination Commission had previously declared a ceasefire in October 2020 to allow for negotiation of a U.S. withdrawal. The militants ended the unofficial truce in May 2021 because of “the lack of seriousness of the Iraqi and US governments in scheduling the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq,” one commander told international media. The U.S. military has warned Iraqi militias are increasingly turning to drones, which can fly below the detection range of aerial defensive systems. In mid-July, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) intelligence chief Hossein Taeb led an IRGC delegation in meeting with Iraqi militia leaders in Baghdad. Taeb reportedly told the militias to increase their attacks on U.S. forces after U.S. airstrikes on militia positions the previous month. Taeb also allegedly instructed the militias to expand their attacks to Syria. (Sources: Middle East Eye, Washington Post, Middle East Eye, Reuters, CNBC, Al Jazeera, Military.com, Hill, NBC News, Reuters) ISIS also continues to target U.S. and Iraqi forces and civilians. In July 2021, coalition officials warned ISIS continues to regroup in Iraq’s Diyala province as militants reportedly become more nomadic because they cannot control territory outright. Iraqi Intelligence officers and local tribal leaders also warned ISIS is also regrouping in the disputed Kirkuk region in Iraqi Kurdistan. According to the warnings, small groups of ISIS fighters continue to attack military and police checkpoints, assassinate local leaders, and target electricity grids and oil installations. ISIS also claimed responsibility for a July 19 suicide bombing in Baghdad’s al-Sadr City that killed at least 35 and wounded more than 60 on the eve of the Islamic festival of Eid al-Adha. On July 24, Kadhimi claimed Iraqi forces arrested the “terror cell” responsible for the bombing. (Sources: Guardian , Kurdistan 24, Reuters, United Nations, Al Jazeera) Overview Since the 2003 downfall of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, violent extremist groups such as ISIS and Iranian-backed Shiite militias have capitalized on longstanding sectarian divisions among Iraq’s Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish populations to radicalize Iraqis and expand their own influence. The Iraqi government has had to contend with balancing sectarian divisions in order to present a unified military front against ISIS. Iraqi sectarianism has fueled extremism in the country, according to Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. ISIS and other groups have used historic divisions between Iraqi Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, Turkmen, and other minorities to increase their recruitment. As president from 1979 until 2003, Saddam Hussein violently repressed opposition groups and maintained strict military control that inflamed Iraqi and regional Sunni-Shiite tensions. In September 1980, Hussein invaded neighboring Iran and launched a failed eight-year-long war during which both sides systematically rocketed each other’s major cities and Iraqi Kurds aided Iran. In August 1990, Hussein’s army crossed into Kuwait, occupying the country and declaring it a province of Iraq. The invasion led to the 1991 Operation Desert Shield in which a U.S.-led coalition forced Hussein to withdraw. (Sources: Reuters, BBC News, U.K Defense Intelligence, New York Times, BBC News, New York Times, CNN, BBC News) In the aftermath of Hussein’s 2003 removal from power, extremist organizations such as al-Qaeda and Jaysh al-Mahdi launched a violent insurgency against the Iraqi government. At the same time, Iranian-backed militias such as Kata’ib Hezbollah sought to gain influence in Iraq by joining the insurrection. Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) emerged as a central actor in the insurgency, eventually expanding and changing its name to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and began to seize territory in northwestern Iraq. After capturing Iraq’s second largest city of Mosul in June 2014, ISIS declared an Islamic caliphate in captured portions of Iraq and Syria. Within its captured territory, ISIS enacted brutal discriminatory laws against non-Sunnis, particularly Iraq’s Yazidi and Christian minorities. ISIS has also engaged in the widespread murder, kidnapping, and enslavement of these minorities, leading Amnesty International and other humanitarian groups to accuse ISIS of ethnic cleansing. In non-ISIS-held portions of Iraq, the group has engaged in suicide bombings, shootings, and other violent attacks targeting Iraqi government forces and civilians. Within its captured territory, ISIS has destroyed Iraqi cultural and religious sites, brutally enforced religious restrictions, and violently oppressed Iraqi minorities. (Sources: Bloomberg News, Amnesty International, U.N. OHCHR, CNN) At its height, ISIS controlled more than 40 percent of Iraqi territory, but by April 2017 the U.S.-backed Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and the Global Iraq: Extremism and Terrorism Coalition against ISIS had reduced ISIS’s hold on Iraqi territory to less than 7 percent. As of March 7, 2017, the coalition had conducted more than 11,000 airstrikes in Iraq, destroying thousands of ISIS positions, vehicles, and other targets. Backed by U.S. airstrikes, the ISF continued to battle against ISIS forces in Mosul, which ISIS captured in 2014. The 100,000-strong ISF operation liberated the eastern side of the city from the militants in January 2017. On July 10, 2017, the Iraqi government announced the liberation of Mosul, where Baghdadi had declared ISIS’s caliphate three years earlier. ISIS continued to lose territory in Iraq throughout 2017, and following the November 17 recapture of Rawa, the last ISIS-held town in Iraq, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared military victory over ISIS in the country. On December 9, Abadi announced that the Iraqi- Syrian border was fully secure. However, Iraqi officials fear that the group is shifting its strategy to that of a more traditional insurgency. (Sources: Associated Press, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, Independent, Global Coalition Against Daesh, U.S. Department of Defense, Reuters, CBS News, Al-Monitor, Washington Post, CBS News, Business Insider, CNN) Iraqis remain divided on how to counter ISIS. Polling by ORB International revealed that as of July 2015, 56 percent of Iraqis opposed coalition airstrikes targeting the ISIS militants, despite 84 percent believing that ISIS has a “strongly negative” influence in the country. In addition, a March 2016 International Organization for Migration poll discovered that 80 percent of nearly 500 Iraqi migrants in living Europe cited “no hope for the future” as their primary reason for fleeing the country. (Sources: New York Times, BBC News, ORB International, International Organization for Migration) The Iraqi government is also contending with Kurdish separatism. In the 20th century, Iraqi Kurdish separatists aided Iran during the Iran-Iraq War, particularly in capturing the key Iraqi border town of Hajj Umran. In recent years, Kurdish Peshmerga forces have joined the Iraqi government in fighting ISIS, but have also sought to use recaptured Iraqi territory as part of a future Kurdish state. Within the autonomous Kurdish areas, tensions between Kurds and Turkmens have resulted in riots, such as on July 28, 2008, when a Kurdish mob blamed Turkmen extremists for a suicide bombing in the city earlier that day and attacked Turkmen offices in Kirkuk. (Sources: BBC News, New York Times) Radicalization and Foreign Fighters During Saddam Hussein’s 24-year rule, he violently suppressed dissent and sought regional hegemony. At the same time, Hussein instituted policies that legalized the Muslim Brotherhood and expanded the influence of Salafism in Iraq. These policies directly contributed to the rise of militant Salafist groups in Iraq after Hussein’s regime was deposed in 2003. Iraq has since been a sectarian battleground between extremist Sunni groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIS and predominantly Shiite Iraqi government forces and Iranian-backed Shiite militias vying for influence. Baath Party Created in 1951, the Arab Socialist Baath Party, also known as the Iraqi Baath (“renaissance”) party, advocated pan-Arabism, anti-colonialism, socialism, and secular nationalism. Under Baathist ideology, each individual Arab state is part of a larger Arab nation. The Iraqi Baathist party—headed by Assistant General Secretary Saddam Hussein—came to power in Iraq through a 1968 military coup led by General Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr. Bakr assumed Iraq’s presidency and appointed Hussein to organize the Baath party’s militia and establish its security agencies. By November 1969, Hussein’s security team had effectively purged opposition rivals and dissidents, leading Bakr to promote Hussein to vice president and head of the Revolutionary Command Council. (Sources: BBC News, BBC News) Hussein assumed the presidency in 1979 and immediately began to violently suppress any individual or group he viewed as a threat to his reign. Baathists who Hussein deemed disloyal were immediately detained or killed. Hussein promoted the purge as patriotism and advocated for loyalty to him rather than to the Baathist party and its ideology. (Sources: BBC News, U.K Defense Intelligence, New York Times) In 1994, Hussein initiated the Faith Campaign, which integrated strict Islamic fundamentalist concepts into the Iraqi state.